Caitlin Oleson
Storyteller, Canada Celebrates Folklore, Iceland
Caitlin Oleson is an award-winning playwright, essayist, and researcher with a keen interest in storytelling. Her first foray into the art form was with a autobiographical show, Crushed, which premiered at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in 2015 and was remounted at the Kingston Storefront Fringe in 2019. Her stories have also been featured in the GRTTWAK podcast and with Ottawa Storyteller’s Stories in 180 series.
Caitlin’s office comedy, The Trouble with Ninjas, was presented as a reading at the 2018 TaDa! Festival and Double Bill in the Hills in Wakefield. Her feminist piece, Stripped, was included in the 2019 Fresh Meat Festival in Ottawa. Her theater for young audiences play, Goodbye George Love Sam, won the Sybil Cooke Award as part of the 79th Annual National One-Act Playwriting Competition at Ottawa Little Theater.
With a background in aerial arts, dance, and traditional theater, Caitlin has worked across genres and disciplines to bring empowering, moving, and humorous stories to the stage. She believes in the power of stories to connect our hearts, calm our spirits, and inspire our imaginations, and she strives to share impactful messages with her audience using words, music, and movement.
In addition to her work as a performer, Caitlin is an accomplished writer whose work has appeared in The Brandon Sun, OnStage Ottawa, What’s Hers magazine, What If? magazine, and The Logberg-Heimskringla, Canada’s only newspaper serving the Icelandic community. Caitlin is a proud Icelandic-Canadian who grew up in the prairies, near the heart of New Iceland.